Over the recent years, a personal computer has included a variety of functions such as viewing a TV program and reproducing a DVD-Video.
In the case of viewing the TV program, a user (viewer) gets an electronic program guide (EPG) displayed on a display of the computer, then finds out a favorite program from the EPG and views this program, which usage has become commonly accepted. The EPG, which is transmitted as carried on a part of broadcasting waves, can be therefore utilized if in an environment enabling the TV program to be viewed, and is more convenient than preparing a conventional printed program guide separately.
In the EPG, however, if trying to see more of channels and more of time zones, only some proportion of data is displayed on the display of the computer, which entails looking at the data while scrolling, resulting in a poor-browsability-case and a hard-to-find-a-favorite-program case. In particular, the data must be searched in a limited space other than the Window displaying the TV program in the middle of viewing the TV program, which involves extreme difficulty.
Such being the case, a device is proposed, which accumulates the information about the TV programs viewed in the past and extracts the program suited to the user's favorite.
[Patent Document 1]    International Publication WO02/059785
[Patent Document 2]    Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. H11-134345